Probably in the Department of TMI

I don’t think it’s been a huge secret that John Mortimer — author of “Rumpole of the Bailey” and a zillion other tales featuring the cranky barrister — catted around with various women during his heyday. But a new unauthorized biography goes even further with allegations:

A new unauthorised biography of the grand old man of British literature claims that he did not write a word of Brideshead Revisited, the acclaimed television adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s novel with which Mortimer was solely credited. The book even poses a question mark over the quality of Rumpole of the Bailey, his most popular creation.

These body blows are of a different order from Mortimer’s admission last year of fathering a love child, Ross, with the actress Wendy Craig 42 years ago. The old roué, twice married and patriarch of an extended family, never concealed the fact that he was “a ladies’ man”. Many felt a grudging admiration that a man blessed with so few physical attributes had managed to seduce so many beautiful women.

Yet even this skill assumed a new aspect last week when two former girlfriends stepped forward to confirm Mortimer’s predilection for being spanked, revealed by Graham Lord in John Mortimer: The Devil’s Advocate.

“When it came to love-making, what he most liked me to do was to smack him on the botty,” Molly Parkin, the writer, told Lord.

Shirley Ann Field, the actress, who had an affair with the married Mortimer when she was 26, said: “He had this thing about spanking and hairbrushes. I thought, God, what a strange one we’ve got here.”

Mortimer, who’s published his memoirs already, hopes that an authorized biography due next year will "set the record straight."

Somehow I doubt an unauthorized biography of Colin Dexter would cause the same sort of furor, but then, you never know.

(thanks to MG for the link)